Father of Phoenix Highway Shooting Suspect Defends His Son

Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of man? Or did the cops get the wrong guy? “All I have to say is I’m the wrong guy,” Merritt, 21, told the judge at his arraignment. “I tried to tell the detectives that. My gun’s been in the pawn shop for the last two months. I haven’t even had access to a weapon.” Yes, well, cnn.com reports . . .

Authorities got a break in the case after a 9 mm handgun was pawned, City Councilman Sal DiCiccio said. The pawn shop’s owner alerted authorities after he suspected it was the same type used in the highway shootings.

Lab results showed it was the same gun used in four I-10 shootings on August 29 and 31, said Col. Frank Milstead, director of the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

Graves said Merritt pawned the handgun, which investigators collected from the shop. The gun was fired at the state crime lab and bullets from the tests matched bullet fragments from the four freeway shootings, Graves said.

9mm shows up at a pawn shop and t owner’s first thought is “This could be the rive-by weapon!” As mentioned, Merrit should have a receipt from the shop OR an alibi for one (or) all of the shootings. If he was landscaping during any one of the shootings, he shouldbe free to go.

As I understand it it’s possible narrow down the possible make/model of the gun by the rifling marks left on the bullet. For example if the rifling marks are from a polygonal barrel you just eliminated a whole lot of pistols and made Glock a front runner.

How the pawn shop owner knew what they were looking for is an interesting question.

It isn’t unusual for the police to notify pawns and gun shops to be on the lookout for certain types of weapons. Maybe they did so in this case. One thing for certain is that we lack details. If the dude has the correctly dated receipt, he’ll have a good lawsuit. I wouldn’t trust the pawn shop without proof either.

My first thoughts too. How many other hundreds of 9mm handguns were pawned around Phoenix and how many did the police test? It would be disconcerting to me that a single pawn shop owner called in a single pawned gun and that was the only one tested. If that were the case. Not sure yet.

yeah but look at what they said: “bullets from the tests matched bullet fragments from the four freeway shootings”

they didn’t say that it matched every bullet fragment nor did they say that other guns didn’t match. even if every 9mm glock matched and if only 2 out of 27 fragments were a match the quote would still be factual.

Did he pawn the 9mm, or did he sell it to the shop? Either way one should have a receipt of the transaction, even if as an earlier theory was suggested and the shop owner fiddled with dates of the transaction to cover up the tracks of someone inside the pawn shop who might be ultimately responsible the guy who sold or pawned the pistol should be able to clear himself and prove that the pistol wasn’t in his ownership during the time of the shootings.

“The gun was fired at the state crime lab and bullets from the tests matched bullet fragments from the four freeway shootings,”

Bullet fragments were matched to test bullets? Pieces of bullets recovered from crime scenes were matched to whole bullets fired in a lab? Let me guess, the bullet fragments consisted of lead and a zinc/copper alloy and the bullets fired in the lab were constructed of lead and a zinc/copper alloy! That is some serious CSI/TV fantasy.

I read up on ballistic matching a while back, and apparently it’s a bunch of voodoo, especially with modern guns. Modern machining is so precise that two barrels off of the same assembly line will produce a ballistics match.

It’s going to be expensive, but his defense can hire an expert witness who can destroy the prosecution’s case, if all they have is a ballistics match.

Matching bullet fragments seems much more difficult that matching bullets.

Wikipedia says https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_fingerprinting
“The Maryland State Police wrote a report critical of the program and asking the Maryland General Assembly to disband it, since it was expensive and had not contributed to solving a single crime.[3] Subsequently however, the database did provide evidence used to obtain one murder conviction at an estimated cost of 2.6 million dollars per conviction.[4]

A California Department of Justice survey, using 742 guns used by the California Highway Patrol as a test bed, showed very poor results; even with such a limited database, less than 70% of cases of the same make as the “fingerprint” case yielded the correct gun in the top 15 matches; when a different make of ammunition was used, the success rate dropped to less than 40%.”

And an even more important question: why would 9mm bullets fragment at all upon striking a motor vehicle? A rifle bullet may fragment when it strikes mammalian tissue because of the extreme velocities involved. A 9mm bullet hitting a car door at 1000 fps? I don’t think so.

Actually, 9mm bullets will fragment when hitting the glass of an automobile as evidenced recently in Allen, TX where a college student was shot in an automobile. The 9mm bullet entered through the back windshield and fragmented. One of the larger fragments went through the boy’s shoulder, causing a wound that required surgery. Several fragments embedded in the dash of the car. Most likely was a hollowpoint, but regardless, the bullet did fragment. The boy was the son of a friend of mine who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I thought that was weird also. Although, that might explain why no one has been killed yet. If the shooter was using a rifle, I would have expected at least one fatality but if the crimes were indeed carried out with a pistol, that would make sense (relatively). What does not make sense is why he used a pistol. That just seems silly but I don’t know the exact motivation for these attacks.

I wish we could do response gifs so I could use the Anchorman “I don’t believe you” here. Unless there has been some new breakthrough that I haven’t heard of, so called bullet matching is junk science.

My guess is that they know this is the guy via “old fashioned police work” i.e. a tip, and they are just padding the forensics so that jurors whose minds have been poisoned by CSI believe them.

Either there is solid evidence connecting the gun to the shootings or there isn’t. Let the expert witnesses argue that. Either the gun was in the pawn shop or it wasn’t. The shop owner’s records and a pawn ticket should show which is the case. Why is this so difficult? Does this guy have a criminal record that would suggest him as a suspect?

While Pro-Pot might be a subject rarely broached in this forum, Pro-Gun, Anti-Cop, but especially ‘Conspiracy Lover’ describes quite a few TTAG regulars to a tee and for a perfect example you needn’t look further than comments below Dustin shared with us.

Maybe on TV… In reality, it’s never been upheld, and only used on ignorant people to coerce a confession.

I could fire a bullet from the same make and model firearm right now and it would be a “match.” Ballistic fingerprinting is a hilarious lie. If the barrel came from the same source, and was a completely different make and model, it’d still match.

A bullet that becomes fragments has so little left to match, pretty much everything matches…

Oh really? And what magical voodoo was this? “Ballistic fingerprinting” has been debunked time and time again… This would be the first time in the history of the USA that it was actually used as evidence in a prosecution.

Up to now, the lie of ballistic fingerprinting has been used to coerce a confession because they know it’s junk science and doesn’t hold up in court. There are a few nations in the world that allow it, because their citizens are stripped of the right to bear arms, and thus the ability to prove that it’s bunk…

Oh, yeah. Ever heard of a barrel swap? Could be done before or after… Could even be used to frame somebody by putting a different barrel in their gun… You know. If ballistic fingerprinting weren’t total bullsh!t to begin with…

Ooh. This is juicy … and factually correct to boot. The pawnshop owner could be the one who actually shot at the cars. Then he/she waited until someone pawned the same make/model of handgun. Then the pawnshop owners swaps barrels and, voila, the gun that shot the cars!

Even if ballistic matching is reliable (and I am not claiming that it is), the prosecutor would also have to prove that the barrel which matches the bullets was used in the defendant’s handgun — an impossibility since anyone could have operated that barrel in any matching handgun. The prosecutor would also have to prove that the defendant shot the handgun — another impossibility unless there is video surveillance of him shooting the handgun at one of the scenes where the police found casings.

And the prosecutor still has not specified a motive!

I predict that the prosecution’s case is going to evaporate rather quickly.

If it went to the pawn shop 2 months ago, Merrit may no longer have the receipt. Of Couse there should be video cameras in the store so just look through the days recorded surveillances footage to see if he at least entered the store that day. If he did not the pawn shop is lying. I’d also check the surveillance footage of when Merritt claimed to sell the gun to see if he entered than, but suspect it probably has been recorded over by now.

It’s entirely possible that the pawn shop owner is an anti gun nut that has conspired with law enforcement to frame this guy,These anti gun nuts will do anything to manufacture false evidence to make law abiding gun owners look guilty of something they didn’t do.These types of crimes are usually the work of “bored teenagers”.If these charges are proven to be total BS,and I suspect they are,this guy is going to have one hellava lawsuit.

The frame of this story seems to be “gun nut shoots up freeway, fellow nuts naturally copycat because gunzrbad.” Literally, they are now depicting guns as a charismatic Manson like figure that compels his followers to commit random anti-car violence. I should have realized this was happenig, when my AK posted that video of itself beheading a Buick.

Yeah I see lots of holes here too. BTW a few years ago in NW Indiana maybe a dozen cars/trucks were shot at on Cline Avenue. They NEVER caught anyone-even accused a poor black lady of shooting out her own window(yeah THAT was racist)…

Sounds like a set up or cover up. Democrat, Republican they are the SAME coin and we are have been on a downhill slope and neither party has stopped the inflation, deflation or the ations.
No double standards put the DC politicians on Obamacare and SS and then lets see where it goes.
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